Iron Front: Liberation 1944

We were talking about this game in one of the ARMA II threads, but now that its only about 5 weeks away from release, it gets its own thread. Its basically ARMA II but set in WWII so its infinitely better.

The German campaign focuses on slowing the advance of the Soviet troops, while the Soviet campaign is all about breaking through the enemy's resistance. However, the player does not have to do all this on foot: Using their computers, tacticians will control tanks, including the famous German battle tank Panzerkampfwagen VI or "Königstiger" and the Russian Stalin tank JS2, or fighter planes such as the Focke Wulf 190 and dive bombers like the Stuka or the Petlyakov PE-2.

Online is where the battle really heats up in "Iron Front – Liberation 1944": Players can either complete missions cooperatively or compete with each other in special multiplayer modes such as "Capture the Flag" or "Attack and Defense". "Iron Front – Liberation 1944" also includes an extensive mission editor, enabling players to intuitively create their own missions and share them with their friends online, thus guaranteeing that there will never be a shortage of new missions.

Yeah I figured there was probably a mod floating around somewhere. Hope they get a quality one sometime. Firefights in thick jungle with gunships overhead and aaahhhhh computer why u no play ARMA

Click to expand...

You could literally make a mission like that on Lingor in less than 30 minutes, depending on how complex you want it.

Garg, we're talking about what is essentially an Arma 2 mod here, and the team is actually composed of experienced arma 2 modders who have been making ww2 stuff for arma for a while. There isn't much to worry about as far as the engine goes, since they didn't create it themselves. How much they improved or changed in it, I don't know. But I don't think you should be concerned about developer reputation in this case.

Some awesome stuff in this video. Shows the detailed uniforms (they spend a lot of time on them, so feel free to skip ahead) and then the weapons. It also shows off some new features that aren't in ARMA2, like firing at the hip from a jog, a new vehicle damage model, and real shrapnel from grenades. If you open the video on youtube's site you can get English captions.

Yeah, in fact he didnt mention anything at all about mods. However, it has been confirmed that it is fully modifiable in the same way as ARMA2. Actually, its been confirmed that some ARMA2 mods will work for Iron Front, so ACE should be relatively easy to implement, and that should bring over some of the excellent sounds of bullets flying past you.

That'd be a shame I think. Though Iron Front seems to have a decent amount of the important ACE features built in, so maybe its not as big a deal. Still, I really hope modders dont abandon Iron Front right away just because A3 is coming out.

That guy has a nice voice. Lol at the top rated comments saying "more DayZ videos!" like dude, why don't you just play it yourself. I don't understand people who obsess over videos of other people playing games that are already available.

And what a nub that guy he killed with the mg42, he sprayed and the recoil brought his gun straight up.

Random team deathmatch style stuff that is uncoordinated is pretty boring though. I look forward to cooperative and tvt with people from unitedoperations.

Yeah, the MG42 guy made me laugh. What a fool, I hope that wasn't one of the devs embarrassing himself lol. I do wish there wasnt a language barrier going on so he could actually coordinate, but oh well. Better videos will come out soon.

Assassinate the Blondie! News of the “Iron Front” multiplayer mode
Blondie’s life is in danger! Soviet snipers are gunning for Hitler’s favorite Alsatian. Will the German guards be able to prevent the assassination of the Führer’s pet? “Assassinate the Blondie” has been added to the multiplayer mode of “Iron Front – Liberation 1944″. The tactical shooter from X1 Software/AWAR is due to be released exclusively for the PC on May 25, 2012. In “Assassinate the Blondie”, four players compete against each other in pairs. The Soviets try to kill the Alsatian, while the German team’s mission is to prevent it – or at least eliminate the attackers.

So its out now, and none of you bought it except for me and Vegeta. I guess you're just waiting on me to post my first impressions or something, right? Ok then, here we go.

Me and Vegeta played for a couple of hours on Friday night, the video below has some footage of it. Let me first say that I am so relieved that I didnt fall for another Red Orchestra 2 bait and switch. I kinda knew it wouldn't be, since you can't switch up the gameplay much with the ARMA engine I dont think, at least not like they could with the unreal engine in RO. Iron Front is exactly how I imagined it, and is really, really good. For those of you who play ARMA 2 with us you'll feel right at home. Its as expansive, diverse, and polished as ARMA2 is.

Our first session had a bit of everything. We started off on some infantry based missions, went to the skies in a Dogfight, and trundled across open fields in tanks. Each has a unique flavor of gameplay, which are just as feature rich as A2 is. Being an infantryman feels just like it did in A2, though engagements tend to be medium range at most, given the general lack of optics on small arms. One new feature here though is maneuverable AT guns. I havent played too much with this yet, but it will really make for iconic battles where tanks are assaulting infantry who have prepared positions and guns set up to cover likely approaches. This changes the dynamic from A2 quite a bit since in A2 you generally relied on long range infantry AT to do your damage, but now you've got to plan ahead, or let them come close enough for your grenades or panzershrek to work (or have your own tanks).

Aircraft works pretty good. I'm not sure how much I like dogfighting, since the optics in the planes seem poorly designed, but obviously thats not the gameplay developer's fault. You'll see in the video that I have a lot of trouble hitting things, because the crosshairs are pretty much sitting on top of the... "dashboard" I guess (dont know what to call it), and anything I'm shooting at has to be hidden by the dash for me to have a chance to hit it. Shooting at something I cant see annoys me. I havent tried the Russian planes yet so they may be different, and Vegeta didn't seem to have an issue with it though, so maybe I just suck at flying. I did however create a quick mission where I could strafe infantry columns, and damn that was fun. The flying itself feels excellent. After dive bombing and strafing units I often kept low to the ground, sometimes even having to squeeze between trees at 250km/hr+ and it was exhilarating.

Tanks are the biggest change this game brings. I'll spare the details of the mechanics that were already posted in the videos above, but the experience is pretty visceral. Its one thing to take a hit when you're expecting it, but when you get hit unexpectedly you'll damn near shit yourself. I've read about tanker's experiences in books, and they always say how loud and violent taking a hit is, even when it doesnt penetrate your armor. These rounds have some serious force. The clash is shockingly loud, and the impact will jolt the tank at the very least, sometimes even spinning it slightly and messing up your aim or throwing you off course as you're driving. This tank gameplay is probably my favorite aspect of the game so far.

The maps themselves are fantastic too. In my opinion, they're far better than of the ones in A2. I took a Stuka flight around just to see the sights and its actually beautiful. Its also highly realistic, much more so than Arma's maps. Forests are dense, plains are rolling, cities and towns are laid out realistically. The diversity in terrain types will make great variables for missions. The forest you see in the video for instance will hamstring tankers, and they wont stand a chance, while out on the plains (like you see in the video as well) infantry wont stand a chance unless they have AT guns in prepared positions. I havent had the pleasure of a city fight yet, but I imagine it'd have to be a very combined arms type of deal, with a handful of tanks rolling through the street being protected by infantry, and being used to take out HMG nests and such. Attacking cities with just infantry is probably going to be a rough fight, as every building is enter-able, and with the compactness of some of the cities, HMGs and LMGs are going to rule in defensive positions.

So in conclusion, I'm pretty sure this is going to be my number one game for awhile. The Developers have expressed plans for expansions (like Western Front content) if the game sells well enough for their studio to stay afloat. If that happens it may very well become my favorite game of all time. So yeah, you guys should buy it. Its only $29 (and 10% off on steam right now, though steam will make patching and such more difficult, just like it does with Arma2). Some people on the internet say this game is nothing more than a mod, and refuse to pay for it. Well those people are idiots. You're not an idiot, are you?

So, without further ado, the video of my first couple games:

EDIT: Oh thats bullshit. I made a parody of that ITV video awhile back, and apparently ITV got butthurt over it and filed a copyright claim which put my account in poor standing and thus preventing me from uploading a video longer than 15 minutes. **** those guys, I'm disputing that.

+1 to everything Krynn said; really captures my thoughts on the game so far.

Basically, anyone who bought RO2 hoping for a realistic ww2 game, should buy this. I can't speak enough about the advantages this game has over any other FPS game on the market simply by being on the ARMA engine.

The immersion of realistic dense environments, combined with not feeling at all like you're on some predetermined path in a mission, just makes the game miles ahead of any other game you've played. The devs did really nice work on all the assets in the game, it definitely is a worthy total conversion. I've barely scratched the surface having only that one session with Krynn, but I'm very impressed. Just the fact that all the environments are 100% new and so are all the weapons and vehicles, injects new life into the arma engine (like DayZ is doing) and brings a new flavor of tactics and gameplay with it.

There were a bunch of full up servers when I just checked. Perhaps it was just the time of day?

Anyways, I've got the day off for the holiday, and can play all day if I want to. Lets try and get a game with the three of us going. I made a quick mission we can try (my first mission ever, so who knows if its good).

I made a mission where there were 3 russian planes flying around, and I was a German soldier who had to get to this one courtyard that had some flak guns, with russian patrols everywhere. It didn't end up being very good though, for some reason I didn't run into any patrols and the static troops I placed near the guns were pretty boring to encounter. I think because they were individual units and not in a group together, they had no tactics and just stood in place.

I feel like my grandfather would have ****ing loved this game if it was of his era. Alas, he is a veteran and 86 years old and seen his fair share. He writes about it though, and actually appreciates "games" -- as long as they're accurate like this.

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